— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

In terms of writing and story, I'm sure there won't be a problem since Parker and Stone are working on it and it's also one of the positive specialties of Obsidian. But I highly doubt they can deliver a good game-play through this. Overall, guess it won't be a successful game in the end and turns out to be average, but I hope to be proved wrong.

Originally Posted by Biff The Understudy
When people claim nwn1 was better then nwn2 i can only assume they are refering to the gameplay and more importantly the toolset rather then the story.
The fans of nwn1 seems to be focused more on the multiplayer aspect and downloadable modules then the story and sadly nwn2 kinda failed in both those areas.
Gameplay was pretty horrible too especially for melee classes but that is true for both games.
While i consider nwn 2 to be a gigantic step up from nwn1 im also not into multiplayer or player modules.

Failed? Not so much. The nwn2 toolset simply cut out the lesser skilled hence why there was less of everything. A blind, tied up in the basement stevie wonder could make a module in nwn1. The nwn2 toolset required planning, time and effort. 80% of the 'module' makers of nwn1 didn't move over to nwn2 because the learning curve.

However those that did stick it out made some wonderful and beautiful creations. I simply saw it as letting the cream rise to the top and in that way was a good thing. Cut out all the vanilla, garbage modules makers they put a whole 30mins into their 'module' and uploaded it to nwvault. So you had to wade though 3 pages of swill to get to one fine wine. Didn't have that issue nearly as much with nwn2 files/modules. Most all files were quality.

Originally Posted by ToddMcF2002
OK I'm crying uncle! I didn't get very far in last last attempt at NWN2 and I plan on going back in. It wasn't the plot or graphics that killed it for me, it was the interface. It seemed like a series of unnecessary design changes. That's it, nothing else really.

Harlequin all my rpg goodness is on the PC but I am trying to get my kids into DnD, just picked up the Red Box for the 4e toolset and a bunch of metal figures to paint

I liked the changes, but that was me. Plus after the first few patches most of the issues I see listed in this thread were fixed. Sounds mostly by people who didn't give it a chance like they did with nwn1 which was a buggy mess until patch #4 if I recall correctly.

If you are into V:tM 20th edition PnP I am starting a new chronicle here in Salem every other sat if you are interested. Let me know.

Originally Posted by Harlequin
AFAIK obsidian does not have the D&D lic anymore hence no NWN3 and the like.

Obsidian never had the D&D licence, they did NWN2 via Atari (largely funded via another independent group, BVT). Atari has basically lost the licence now, whether there will be another exclusive licencing agreement or licencing on a project by project basis (or even direct funding via Hasbro/ WOTC) is not known. The SP RPG is presumably the animation franchise Obsidian has been working on so there are still 'open' projects (such as the one JESawyer is working on) that could be D&D.

Originally Posted by Zygo
Obsidian never had the D&D licence, they did NWN2 via Atari (largely funded via another independent group, BVT). Atari has basically lost the licence now, whether there will be another exclusive licencing agreement or licencing on a project by project basis (or even direct funding via Hasbro/ WOTC) is not known. The SP RPG is presumably the animation franchise Obsidian has been working on so there are still 'open' projects (such as the one JESawyer is working on) that could be D&D.

Obsidian/the publisher same difference as it related to my point. As they nor any publisher they are working with holds the D&D lic. For my point I didn't think I needed to be anal about it as people would understand what I meant. As most people do not understand the difference between publisher and developer so didn't feel the need to get into a lot of details that had nothing to do with my core point.

It's mentioned along with some sales info in one of their reports- it's in german though which makes it rather difficult for me to find a primary source even using google.de/ncr. It is mentioned fairly widely though, Gorath mentions it here wrt them funding G4/Arcania for example.

Originally Posted by Harlequin
As they nor any publisher they are working with holds the D&D lic.

We don't know that for sure. We simply don't know the status of any unannounced D&D licence(s) nor which other publishers apart from THQ Obsidian is working with, except that Hasbro would like to use the licence and Obsidian should be a good fit.

Basically there's no reason more or less to think Obsidian is working on IWD3 than there was yesterday.

Originally Posted by Harlequin
Errr.. NWN2 was FAR better story, FX and writing wise then NWN1 was. So saying NWN2 wasn't good shows a lack of grasp of these topics (or simply poor taste) on your part.

They were both pretty terrible, no need to fight for what was the worst.

We don't know that for sure. We simply don't know the status of any unannounced D&D licence(s) nor which other publishers apart from THQ Obsidian is working with, except that Hasbro would like to use the licence and Obsidian should be a good fit.

Basically there's no reason more or less to think Obsidian is working on IWD3 than there was yesterday.